1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to interfacing with real world objects, and more particularly, to managing demand for an object in the physical world by way of dynamic demand analysis.
2. Description of the Related Art
The computing industry has seen many advances in recent years, and such advances have produced a multitude of products and services. One such service is the internet commerce. As the internet becomes ever more popular, internet commerce is gaining ground as a more preferred way of conducting business. With the expanse of information available on the internet, a user surfing the internet is able to identify a product he/she is interested in and obtain information associated with the product by navigating through various websites.
However, when a user is in the physical world and takes a liking for a product in a store window or on display that he/she may be interested in buying, currently there is no effective way of linking the user's interest to a wish list that the user can update and maintain. The user can maintain a manual wish list with detailed information of the product or the user may be able to capture an image of the product or information about the project by manually entering the information in an electronic device, such as Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and then surfing the Internet to query about the product, obtain information and perform analysis of the information so that the user may be able to make informed decisions. This approach relies on the user's continued interest to follow up on doing the research on the Internet to obtain the information about the product.
Further, the user's interest in the product may result in the purchase of the product at which time the user has to surf websites or advertisements of various dealers to determine the price, discounts, etc and compare the prices/discounts to determine an optimal price and deal and identify the dealer to purchase from in order to obtain optimal benefit.
At the dealer, the user has to go with the process of checking out the object, wherein the user selects the object and places it in a shopping cart, and proceeds to the checkout counter. At the checkout counter, the user provides the checker or checkout clerk coupon clips for applying discounts to the product. The checker scans the object, scans the discount coupons and registers the payment. Upon purchase of the product, the user has to manually update the wish list (if any) by removing the product from the wish list. This process is labor intensive and prone to careless or inadvertent omissions.
Further, upon purchase of the product, tracking of the product falls off the tracking radar. There is no clear and concise way of tracking the product associated with a user through various stages of use. Tracking the product through various stages of use and providing feedback to a retailer or manufacturer would provide valuable insight that can be used for tailoring the product and/or refining the marketing strategy of the product for a greater return on investment. When the user decides to sell the product, the user needs to register the product for sale and determine the dealers that can sell his product, determine the demand for his/her product, define a value based on the demand and then register the product at each of the selected dealers to market his/her product. Once again, this is a manual and labor intensive process that takes up too much time and energy.
It would be beneficial if the product can be automatically tracked through the various ownership cycle so that the demand for the product may be determined and selling of the product may be coordinated to avail optimal return on investment.
It is in this context that the embodiments of the invention arise.